SharePoint App Store Spurs Interest, Triggers Questions

Developers are curious to see what kind of opportunities the platform will offer.

by DevX Staff

Nov 19, 2012

Microsoft recently announced major changes to SharePoint as an application development platform. It rolled out new tools designed to make it easier to create SharePoint apps and revealed that SharePoint 2013 will feature an app store. While many developers believe the changes offer new opportunities, they have questions about exactly what those opportunities might be.

Quest, an ISV recently acquired by Dell, is one such developer. "We're pioneers putting flags in virgin territory here," said Quest's Chris McNulty. He added, "It remains to be seen which applications will make sense [for the app store]. I'm not sure the app store will be the perfect home for every single thing we do."

"So far, what they've shown us are really basic and simple things, but what happens when you're doing more complicated things? Will that be supported?" asked Kaveh Eshghi from Black Ninja Software. "Most of the stuff we work on is more advanced and difficult."

But Joel Andren from startup HelloFax noted that thanks to the new development model, his company was able to build a new SharePoint application despite having no experienced Microsoft developers on staff. "We would have never built a SharePoint application under the old framework," he said.